John Cena lost in the most important match of all time so what gives him the right to tell the graphics department at WWE that he’s “calling out” The Rock and why would the graphics department even bother with making that image. The following things never happened so Cena “calling out” The Rock also shouldn’t have happened:

– The Colts didn’t call out the Saints after losing Superbowl 44 (because they lost)

– Chris Paul didn’t call out the Hornets after losing his first game in New Orleans as a visitor (because he lost)

– Oklahoma or Ohio State didn’t call out LSU after winning the National Championship those times (because they lost) and no, I don’t remember what happened during last January’s National Championship

– Sean Payton didn’t appeal his suspension after getting caught lying

So why would Cena do this?

WORST: MACHINE GUN KELLY IS NOW SELF AWARE

I didn’t know who this corny kid was until last night and I’m cool with that. Also, very cool with the crowd booing him because, well, he was pretty terrible but then again I think that you could have had Whitney Houston’s ghost sing John Cena’s entrance and she would have gotten a nasty response.

What I’m not cool with is Machine Gun Kelly recognizing his position with the WWE Universe and joining in on the boo’s. We’d like to not like you and hurt your feelings in the process, please.

If there was anyone backstage who Creative wanted to get some heat on they should’ve sent a production assistant to MGK and say “hey, we’re giving you a mic, just talk about how Heath Slater is a rocking and rolling legend” and then voila, mega-heel.

BEST: SIGNS LOBBYING THE WWE TO BRING WRESTLEMANIA TO THEIR CITY

Only noticed a Vancouver one last night and (pretty sure) the same guy brought the same crisp sign again to Raw. This should happen more since having Wrestlemania in your city is rad because

– it’s a huge boost for the local economy

– you can sleep in your own bed after waiting in line all day to get an autograph from Eve then you can think of Eve while laying there if you wanna

– the more signs that the WWE sees in the crowd like this the more likely they are going to take it serious and sure, I’m not being totally real here but I guess I just wish there was some public criteria for choosing the city so we can all follow along. It’s pretty obvious that Dallas is coming up somewhere on the rotation because of that giant screen (also what’s the wrestling equivalent to touching it with a punt?) but who’s next ahem New Orleans who’s next?

It’s really perfect. The city is built for huge events…Convention Center is awesome…Arena next door for Raw the next night…he can break the Superdome attendance record…and I can claim I helped make it happen by referencing this post.

I swear, everything associated with My Boy D-Bry Right There the past two days has been magic, and that tops it off. Amazing. I saw Bret Hart tweeting his disappointment. I can only assume he realizes there is MUCH more to come.

Not only was the ‘YES YES YES’ chant going on outside of the arena, it was still going on as everyone was wandering around searching for food, and even two hours later in the Hoops across the street. It just did not stop. If this doesn’t replace ‘WHAT?’ I may have to breach my verbal contract to buy his new t-shirt.

The best part of the night was Sheamus posing on the ramp, and then the camera cuts to Daniel Bryan in the back watching on a monitor. The crowd sees Bryan and reacts by cheering loudly, and you see Sheamus on the monitor perk up slightly, surely thinking that he had finally won their respect and admiration.

My only problem with the show, besides the Rock’s twenty minutes of masturbation, was the character of Lord Tensai. I love The Giant Bernard, love. Lord Tensai is a silly “lacist” caricature. It’s like the WWE doesn’t have the internet and Japanese culture is still a mystery to them. Like Japanese society is a bunch of cartoon samurais and geishas walking around acting “honoroburu!” -_-

Both Cole and Jerry used the phrase “this ‘Lord Tensai’…”, and weren’t quite able to recall which WWE Superstar he has formally been. I realize they can’t say he was initially named after a dick piercing, but couldn’t they at least refer to him, if not by name, as a former Intercontinental Champion?

The fact that the comment about John Cena not being able to ‘Si Si Si’ the Rock was amazing and deserved a Top 10, but in all great recap. One of the best Raw I have seen in a while, amazing I am still pumped up about it.

I assume he’s referring to the fans going insane for Daniel Bryan in the dark match and booing the hell out of Show and Sheamus, refusing to let Bryan leave when he was cutting a promo and chanting ‘YES YES YES’ all the time.

Great review, Chris. You had your own style yet still fit in with the style of analysis that makes this column so good usually.

However,one thing I disagreed was I really felt like there should have been a best reserved solely for the crowd in general, since they made that RAW way better than it would have been somewhere out in the boondocks.

I feel like this RAW’s legacy to us will be as a night where Daniel Bryan was freaking golden in front of 15000 people for two hours, without even wrestling. For that, I am truly thankful to Miami and its fans.

Yeah, I suppose calling “anybody the worst kind of fans” wasn’t the best way to make my point. I was just bummed that so many people didn’t enjoy what I thought was a pretty rad Wrestlemania beause of one match.

I agree, and honestly, I don’t feel that the entire night was ruined. I had kind of forgotten about the brevity of the match as the night wore on since, as you said, the other matches were good enough to distract from that fact.

I was mad when it happened, but it’s not like shitting all over everyone else’s good performances is a mature response.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be really excited about The Match That Could Have Been and to be let down and angry about it after it happened.

I was really excited about the Rally to Restore Sanity And / Or Fear and was really disappointed in that, too. Seriously, after they have Cat Stevens (!!!!!) and only let him play half a song (????) while Jon Stewart made fart noises it became really hard to enjoy anything else that might have been worthwhile.

Still, even if Sheamus and DBry delivered I don’t think the rest of the night was great. It was good enough. Taker / HHH was better than I was expecting, but both Jericho / Punk & Cena / Rock were as good as to be expected but not as great as I hoped they could have been.

No, I honestly just thought it was funny that you had a top 10 comment, that it was appropriate for it to have happened with Bizarro Raw because you were what could have been considered the heel of a debate that sparked the invention of RTSMF. It was interesting to me as you were a fairly controversial figure over the last couple of days. It’s not X-Pac heat, it’s just a disagreement with others. Nothing personal, just a fun add-on to a weird weekend.

I was kinda with DocZeus on the sentiment, even though it was probably a pretty poor choice of words. While the 18-second thing sucked, I was kinda put off by the gnashing of teeth over DB being “buried” because of what happened. It’s like everyone forgot what happened to him at last year’s Mania, and he ended up having a fantastic year. Hopefully after last night people will have a more measured response to Mania as a whole, because I enjoyed the shit out of it aside from the beginning.

Plus, if Bryan lost to Sheamus in 12 minutes, I firmly believe last night would not have been what last night turned out to be. And that would’ve been a shame. All that said, next year, they owe him a big spot and some time to tear the house down.

People weren’t gnashing their teeth about him being “buried”. Teeth were gnashed because we didn’t get to see him wrestle at Wrestlemania, and he didn’t get to wrestle at Wrestlemania, and it started the celebratory end-of-WWE-year PPV on a sour note that was hard to shake.

And if people hadn’t been gnashing their teeth about it, specifically the fans in Miami, last night’s joyous release of “YES!” wouldn’t have happened.

(I was also at the Rally to Restory Sanity and thought it was disappointing but more because I traveled from NYC to be there and all I got was Kid Rock)

Yeah, I was being flippant. I mean I was responding to somebody who said “I had a bizarre idea of fun” and I took it probably a bit personally but it was certainly dickish.

Bizarre aspect is I don’t disagree with anybody in thinking it was disappointing. I wanted them to get a ton of time too. I mean I totally “get” what they were trying to accomplish (ie Having the wormy chicken shit heel who has been dodging title matches get his comeuppance by having Sheamus kick his head in) but I wanted them to get a chance to shine because I thought I would enjoy that.

I guess I was annoyed I came on after a pretty fun Wrestlemania party at my apartment with a whole bunch of WWE novices to find a whole people whining about Bryan being screwed and assumed everybody was being petulant that Daniel Bryan, the REAL internet champion, getting five minutes and assumed the worse. Hence, the ECW comments. Thus, the snark.

@Lester
To be ABSOLUTELY fair, I can’t imagine there would be such a fervor if this had happened to like… Big Show or Orton or even if Bryan had squashed Sheamus. Its not as if there aren’t a lot of people on messaging boards around the world complaing about WWE “burying” D-Bry.

I mean Daniel Bryan does have an extraordinarily large cult following amongst the hardcore faithful.

Damn, I put this in the other Raw thread right after this one went up.

Here’s the best video I found of the entire post-Raw YES! fest. I love that every time he hits anyone during the match, they chant YES! And every time he gets hit, they chant NO! Awesome. 23 more minutes of a great Raw, filled with Daniel Bryan!

YES!YES!!YES!!! – My first full night commenting on RAW and I crack the Top 10! I’m thinking that the fact that I evolved from a cat in a tie to a human in a tie might have something to do with my success as well.

Good work Trew. I don’t envy Brandon’s position of being the exhausted guy who promised us all sorts of wrestling writing this week and is going to have us up his ass if it’s not quick enough for our liking.

What a great night. I followed WM on the open thread and participated in my first RAW open thread (which has been the best since my return to watching since last years’ post WM RAW)…lots of fun everyone. Now if only Cena had come out in manties.

Being the Ultimate Bum Fight fan that I am,I really hope they don’t screw this angle with Brock up. He’s no longer just some tough guy that people would rather not face if they had the choice.. He was arguably the baddest man on the planet.He should be legitimately feared by every wrestler on the roster for this to come off realistic. If Cena comes out as anything other than pale faced frightened next week then this will be ruined for me.

I’d love to see Rock get smooched by an opponent prior to the bell, flip out and Rock Bottom the guy, then spend five minutes defending himself by pointing out that the guy tried to kiss Rock, and Rock’s not a gay homosexual, so of course the only course of action was attack.

Overall I had been hoping Kahli would find ring wear that is slightly more flattering. At least he could have color coordinated his gear for Team Teddy for ‘mania. I think dress shirt is a good way to cover that awkward hulking mass of upper half of him.

I haven’t seen all the comments from the Raw thread since my internets get finicky at times and won’t load new/old comments properly, but I went nuts when I saw Swagger had a damn Sons of Anarchy hoodie on during the company meeting. Swaggles is deepin SAMCRO, and I can only hope that Otunga is a Grim Bastard.

Speaking of that meeting,I’m really glad Chris pointed out how nice Khali’s shirt was.I’m sure he gets a decent discount at K-Mart but he made the extra effort to get it at Target. Rule #1 when trying to impress the new boss

Solid job man. I wouldn’t want to fill Brandon’s boots either. Unless it’s with Fake Punk Beer/Flat Pepsi. Thank you for the Top 10 nod for the “losing of the shit” for Dolph because I like being pseudo Internet Famous (but totally not really, cuz I’m not that funny or clever enough to be internet famous).

Best of the night for me is still aaron michael with
HAS ANYONE SEEN MY SH*T!? I’VE COMPLETELY LOST MY SH*T.

FunkyWarm,I know that most everyone else’s profile pics are of someone else i.e. I’m not actually Great Khali (although Ive been in my share of Punjabi Prison matches) but for some reason i really imagine you as the man in that picture. Please don’t lead me to believe otherwise

he doesn’t even do Rosa mendez without twisting his nuts. Methinks Mrs Stinger wants all the stinging. Which normally I’d say “AWWW, C’mon dawg”, but Mrs. Stinger’s a really nice lady and we should all respect her wishes.

Especially if her wishes are for more Rosa Mendez gifs bouncing around like a goddamn whack-a-mole.

Chris, Did you do some sort of Voodoo Magic or Rain Dance to make this Awesomeness happen? You must repeat your exact steps from last week to make RAW next week just as good. Also – flying that crowd to D.C. would probably help.

You asked what the wrestling equivalent would be for punting a football into the giant Dallas screen. It would have to be Ziggler getting chokeslammed off of the Hell in a Cell cage and selling it by bouncing into outer space, taking out the screen in the process. Also, I saw HBK’s pyro go off at Wrestlemania. It came out of the very top of the stadium for some reason instead of right above the TitanTron. I missed the flash, but saw the smoke clouds from his usual pyro. It probably would have been easier to see if it’d been fully dark when he came out.

I went to WrestleMania on Sunday, and was so pleasantly surprised that the crowd chanted “YES!” from the time we got there (around 2ish), until past midnight. I say Daniel Bryan for Undisputed Champion!

Here’s something I was wondering if someone could evrify: The W-mania where Cena came out to the old Chicago gangster vignette, then fake mobsters surround the ring….. Is that CM Punk getting out of the back of the car?

Have to admit hearing the pop Bryan got for calling A.J. into the ring last night just to tell her shut up and go was srt of reminicent to The Rock belittling everyone with a question and a good old IT DOESN’T MATTER. Called my mom and explain the whole senario for justification and without half the story out she agreed, “just like The Rock?” I said, “Yes(yes yes) that’s my point but D.B. can wrestle.”

If there was anyone backstage who Creative wanted to get some heat on they should’ve sent a production assistant to MGK and say “hey, we’re giving you a mic, just talk about how Heath Slater is a rocking and rolling legend” and then voila, mega-heel.

So I apparently picked a pretty shitty time to fall asleep before Raw, huh? Might be good though because I don’t know that my shit could handle a WWE crowd being THIS awesome. Just watched Raw and oh man it was glorious.

Maybe I’m just no fun, which is probable, but I really did not think Raw was super great last night. The crowd, yes, was phenomenal. Maybe the most +Rhodesy crowd of all time. And there was some definite awesome: Johnny Ace large and in charge, Ziggler+Swagger teaming up, falling out, and then teaming up again, CM Punk’s bad weather forecast, Mark Henry in dom mode, Alberto Del Rio’s smiling mug, and so on, but it just seemed off. Maybe it’s because I do not like that WWE alway talks about the “wwe universe” and tweets their tweeters nonstop to the point of insanity, but constantly ignores what people are actually discussing on the internet, even in the social media they are supposedly glued to. It’s annoying to have an entire night of an amazing crowd shouting Yes! Yes! Yes! and only one person acknowledges what they are referring to, and it’s John Cena. They didn’t even call the match “controversial.”

Also I do not know what to think about The Rock attempting to wrestle again, and I don’t know who Brock Lesner is beyond his wikipedia stats. Is he just another big guy who is big and sort of powers through stuff? Do we need that? Also I liked that the crowd was chanting for him and then he comes out and the announcers are like “who could’ve seen that coming?” I don’t know, everybody for at least all weekend?

Lesner can pro graps for real. Better than the average big man. Go check out his match vs. Angle at Wrestlemania, aside from one of the more horrific botches you’ll ever see (won’t spoil it) it’s pretty fantastic.

ziggler/funkasaurus after a pretty solid match
the ENTIRE cm punk/henry match and everything that ensued
albertooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo (i swear ricardo held this note longer than my fingers can)ooooooooooooooooooooooooo del rRrRrRrRiiioooooooo!
lord tensai destroying
the announcers DID mention the crowd.
a solid match by both miz and ryder

and jesus christ fucking BROCK LESNAR
if youre relying on wikipedia to learn about him, youre doing it wrong. go spend an hour on youtube. and then spend another 45 minutes watching his mma highlights. and then find the picture of him trudging through the snow with a fucking deer on his back.

I did take the time to look at the youtubes and Lesnar did deliver. I hope they can channel all that hunting into some sort of super heel feud with Bryan, who, as you may recall, is a vegan and doesn’t even eat meat.

And again, lots of good stuff on raw! Raw was strong! But something still seemed off.

@Joelski – to be fair to both guys, I think the quality of the Lesnar/Goldberg match had a lot to do with both guys feeling like the crowd was shitting on them both from the get-go (rightfully so, but still…), and so they kind of said “fuck this” and phoned it in.

Good job for a homeless dirtbag like yourself, Chris Trew. Good job, indeed. I had some laughs, and I know its not an easy gig. Thanks.

I look forward to booing your shitty pro-wrestling managerial skills in the near future, and having some chuckles at your zany antics.

Also, don’t know if you’re aware, but your tag team reps (PayDay and Highroller Hayze) at the last Anarchy Championship Wrestling event had a bit of a falling out. Just FYI if you didn’t get the Tweet/Facebook update/Tumblr.

You did a good job filling in for the Immortal Internet Wrestling Review Writing Champion, Big Bad Brandon.

Crystal Pepsi getting discontinued was a sad day for myself. I’d pick A Ry’s tat over Albert’s face tat.

I was unimpressed with Lord Tensai. He looked slow and akward. In other words, it looked like Albert trying to be Japanese. I was far more happy when it became clear that the ‘E was focussing more on stars like Punk, D Bry, Ryder, Sheamus, Del Rio, etc, while phasing out the geezers like HHH, Taker. Albert sucked in the attitude era and his first match looked unimpressive. I will give him a shot, but, I didn’t see this new and improved Albert everyone has been talking about.

Regardless, it was a fantastic Raw. I hope the crowd for next Monday brings their cheering A game.

I decided to put off Raw until Tuesday because of my residual resentment about Wrestlemania. And then they turned in one of the best episodes in months. Outside of Rock taking 15 minutes to say one sentence and Cena taking 15 minutes to talk for 5, that was one suspenseful, perfectly-booked Raw.

no best for the crowd chanting “Si! Si! Si! Si!” when the Alberto Del Rio came out after chanting “YES! YES YES!” all night? That was the single highlight of the night. Plus the “Randy Orton is an anagram for Beef Jerky with a face” sign.

Second – one of the things that kept running through my mind from the moment the rumors started flying that Lesnar was going to be in Miami was that I honestly couldn’t remember what Brock’s entrance music sounded like, and wondering if any of the other fans did either, and what would happen if the music hit and nobody reacted, and then…

As much as I disagree with the Lesnar bit (because apparently Road Dogg wasn’t proof enough that given enough time, WWE audiences will cheer for anyone), great job on the B&W. I’m intimidated just thinking about trying to fill in for Brandon, so kudos to you!

I’d also like to throw out a personal best to every person in section 118 who joined in the chorus of ‘Oh, he was Prince Albert. You know, A-Train’ after Lord Tensai came out. I assume this happened in every section.

I was busy getting relocated during the entirety of the Rock’s segment, so this Raw was pretty much all bests for me until Lesnar showed up. The crowd was so much fun, I got to mark out like crazy for both Prince Albert and Mark Henry splitting CM Punk’s wig, and Chris Jericho gave me a gigantic heel-inspired lady boner. I am not looking forward to the let down that will be every single Raw after this.